We’re very proud of it. The record was made in Portland, OR, last year, and was helmed by Tucker Martine & Colin Meloy on production duties. Olivia did the lion’s share of arrangement (with some contributions from Mr. Meloy and Jenny Conlee) on these eleven trad & cover tunes. Offa Rex is heading out and performing a few live dates in select cities:

If you’ve already purchased a ticket for one of the other shows on the tour but would like to get in on the pre-show performance/Q&A, signed tour poster, and more, TWSSCAP Upgrades are now available as well.

If you need a refresher on Offa Rex, our collaboration with Olivia Chaney, think Albion Dance Band/Steeleye Span/Anne Briggs. Traditional folk songs through the lens of the 60’s and 70’s British Folk Revival plus a few originals from that era by Ewan MacColl and Lal Waterson.

“Blackleg Miner” is available now as an instant download, along with the title track, when you pre-order The Queen of Hearts on CD, vinyl, or via iTunes. Due to a slight delay in vinyl production, the album’s release date has been pushed back one week to July 14, but we’ll have another new track to share in the coming weeks to help hold you over in the interim.

Tickets for the Offa Rex show in Portland on July 23 are sold out but a limited supply still remain for the NYC show at The Town Hall on July 26 here.

We’re offering The Whole Shebang Super Concert Action Packages for this new date along with the rest of the stops on the tour. If you’ve already purchased a standard ticket for one of the shows but would like to get in on the pre-show performance/Q&A, signed tour poster, and more, Upgrade versions are now available as well.

Tickets will go on sale Friday, May 12 at 10am PT and will be available for purchase here.

***Update***

We’re pleased to announce a special event prior to the show. Colin Meloy and Benjamin Gibbard will perform short solo sets for a very limited number of fans and take part in a meet & greet with photos. Passes for this pre-show event will be available as an add-on to your ticket to the main show when they go on sale this Friday.

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If you are unable to attend the show but are interested in supporting these great organizations, please visit ACLU and Planned Parenthood to see how you can help.

The disembodied entity who typically writes these missives is on vacation; this is being written by me, Colin Meloy. And I want to bend your ear about something.

A few years ago, I had a chance to hear a record by a fantastic artist, one Olivia Chaney. She made a record called The Longest River and I was so taken by it, particularly her arrangement of the old folk song “The False Bride.” She seemed to me to be channeling the great female folk singers of the British folk revival: Sandy Denny, Anne Briggs, June Tabor, Norma & Lal Waterson, Shirley Collins and Maddy Prior. We invited her to open a bunch of Decemberists shows in 2015 and afterward I made a pitch to her: let us be the Albion Dance Band to your Shirley Collins. Let’s start a band. Let’s make a record of old folk songs that will be as much about rediscovering ancient songs as it is an homage to that incredible era of British music, the 60s and 70s folk revival.

She, very kindly, agreed.

And so we Decemberists are very proud to announce the arrival of OFFA REX, our collaboration between the band and Olivia Chaney.

We rehearsed and arranged the songs out on my farm outside of Portland last summer; we recorded it with Tucker Martine at Flora Recording & Playback that fall. I sing two songs, Olivia sings eight of ’em. One of the songs is an instrumental medley of two old Morris dance tunes, arranged by Jenny on accordion. Here’s the track listing:

You can listen to “The Queen of Hearts,” a song we learned from Martin Carthy, here. It’s about heartbreak in the face of unrequited love; to my ears it’s as fresh today as it was when it was written three hundred years ago. That’s kind of the spirit of the record.

Let's begin this missive directed towards our fair home state of Oregon: we're pleased to announce we'll return to Britt Pavilion in Jacksonville, OR on Saturday, August 19 with special guest Olivia Chaney. Our limited pre-sale begins TODAY at 10am PT at Decemberists.com and The Whole Shebang Super Concert Action Packages™ will go on sale then as well. If you miss out on both, Britt Festivals will have their own member pre-sale starting today. The general public on-sale will begin May 12th.

The Shuffling Off to Ragnarök Spring Tour 2017 kicks off tonight and only tomorrow night's show in Pittsburgh and Atlanta on Tuesday have any remaining tickets. Here's a look at the limited-edition screenprint tour poster, designed by Carson Ellis, that will be for sale at the merch table.

We have a bunch of new songs and a wide swath of material from every corner of our discography to cover; you can follow our Instagram or visit our tour archive throughout the run to keep track of the setlists. Look forward to seeing you all out there!

The Shuffling Off to Ragnarok Spring Tour 2017 begins next week and we’re excited to announce a handful of new dates this summer!

In addition to Travelers’ Rest, our curated two-day festival in Missoula, we’ll make our way to Vancouver, Calgary, Salt Lake City, and Oakland in August. We’re pleased to have our friend Olivia Chaney join us for these shows.

Pre-sale tickets and another batch of The Whole Shebang Super Concert Action Packages for the Canadian dates and Oakland will be available starting tomorrow, March 28 at 10am local at Decemberists.com. The password for the TWSSCAP pre-sales for Vancouver and Oakland is “ovalencia.” The public on-sale will follow this Friday, March 31. SLC’s schedule is a bit staggered with its pre-sale beginning on April 24.

Many of the shows on the spring tour are sold out and those with tickets remaining won’t stay that way for long, so be sure to grab yours soon for Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and night 2 in Brooklyn. A few of these dates still have TWSSCAPs available as well, including an upgrade version for the Brooklyn shows if you’ve already purchased your tickets.

The Decemberists Shop has been doing a bit of spring cleaning and you can get up to 50% off apparel, posters, and more.

Oh, but we have some news for you, gentle email-blast-reader. After years of careful planning, calculating, soul-searching and soul-corralling, The Decemberists are pleased as punch to announce their first ever curated 2-day festival, taking place in Missoula, Montana on August 12th and 13th, 2017 at Big Sky Brewing Company Amphitheater. It’s called Travelers’ Rest. History-minded readers will recognize that the festival is named after the historical site, some few miles south of town, where Lewis & Clark were known to have made camp and put on their own two day music festival. It received mixed reviews; several critics noted that Meriwether Lewis’s band DySeNtErY, which headlined the event, was “overly morose” and the available food was “scarce” to "inedible.”

NOT SUCH, THIS TIME AROUND.

The Decemberists will be performing both nights of the festival, playing two unique sets, with other acts including the incredible Glaswegians Belle & Sebastian, the inimitable NWers/rabble-rousers The Head and the Heart as well as Shakey Graves, Sylvan Esso, Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires, Real Estate, Julien Baker AND MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED.

Quick back story: as many of you know, Colin Meloy has a special connection to Montana, having been born and raised there, and is tremendously excited to be putting this event together for Montanans as well as everyone in the region. Having been your typical moody, navel-gazing teenager, he often bemoaned the lack of national bands that toured through his home state and is naturally awfully proud to be doing his small part to bring a bit more music to Montana.

Two-day tickets go on sale en masse this Friday, March 24 at 10am Mountain Standard Time but you can get a crack at them at a special early-bird price tomorrow, March 23, at 10am using the password BITTERROOT while pre-sale supplies last HERE.

$1.00 of every ticket sale will benefit the ACLU of Montana. The band hopes to involve many such progressive organizations from around the state in the event; keep an eye on TravelersRestFest.com for more info.